Gaining Self Confidence – Why is it So Hard and What Can You Do About It

There are numerous self confidence tips that can help you immediately boost confidence. However, for a deeper self confidence that resides within the core of your being, a different approach is required. First understand the misconception of gaining self confidence. Then, use your experiences to gain confidence and finally properly define your fear because when you have clarity on what you are facing, you will have confidence in taking it on.

The misconception about gaining self confidence

I know a lot of people who are seeking to develop self confidence, and I know that most of them will fail to achieve it. Yep, that’s right. It does not matter what book they read, who they learned it from, what methods they used or even what their current level of ability is.
They think that by doing all that, they will one day gain that unstoppable confidence that will give them courage to take on life like never before. They view confidence like it is an object that they can get a hold of. It’s either you have it or not. And once you have it, you will be transformed into a different person.

Well, usually sooner or later most of these people will start to give up because no matter how much they try, they seemingly cannot reach that place of supreme confidence. Well it’s no wonder. It’s because it doesn’t exist!

People believe that successful individuals are naturally confident and do not have any doubts. That is not true. No matter how smart, successful, talented or capable someone is, no one is absolutely free of doubt. There is the possibility success and failure in every situation. Michael Jordan has doubts, so does Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci and everyone else.

However, these individuals have something that sets them apart from others. The difference is that these individuals are aware that the state of absolute confidence cannot be achieved. So unlike many others, they don’t wait until they are confident enough, they don’t wait until they have no doubts. Rather they take action in spite of the doubt. They prepare as much as they can, then take action. They don’t try to dispel all doubts & be 100% confident before making a decision or taking a course of action.

If you want to be 100% confident before you even attempt something, you can bet that you won’t be attempting many things. Preparation can only do so much for your confidence, after you have prepared as much as you can – Just Do It!

Self confidence or lack of self confidence is gained from experience

Self confidence is gained from experience. A past success or achievement gives us confidence that we can achieve it again or do something similar. Whenever we attempt to do something, our brain automatically analyzes the probability of success. It looks for signs and indications that support either success or failure. This is where we get our confidence.

Nothing gives a stronger indication than a past experience of success. With that, it is proof that something can be achieved because it has happened before. So why shouldn’t it happen again.
Subsequently this becomes a cycle – the more success you experience, the more confident you become. This added confidence drives you to further success and so on. This is why confident people become more and more confident, and more and more successful.

So while gaining self confidence comes from past experience, unfortunately so do low self confidence. Just as the experience of success can help us in gaining self confidence, past experiences of failure will pull our confidence level down. So in the end, what matters is just not having experience, but rather the quality of the experience. Or to be more accurate, the interpretation of the experience. We can’t control what happens, but we can control our interpretation of what happened.

Do successful people face setbacks? Do they have tough times? Of course they do. Though they experience setbacks, they never ever view those as failures. To them, those experiences are valuable lessons, gave them a chance to perfect their skills, gain knowledge and ultimately brought them closer to reaching their goal. By having an interpretation such as this, every single experience they have will be looked at positively and will contribute to gaining self confidence.

So rather than let past experiences of failures drive down your confidence level, interpret all your experiences in an empowering way so you will be gaining confidence from it no matter what the experience is.

It is not that hard to do. Don’t ever think that you are lying or kidding yourself. Remember, every situation has both sides of the coin – positive & negative. Every crisis has an opportunity, every loss has a gain. In other words, by interpreting your experience positively, you are not denying yourself the truth, you are just focusing more on the positive than the negative.

Practice daily to respond to any situation in this way. Make it a habit to immediately ask yourself ‘What can I learn from this?’ or ‘What’s so great about this situation?’ whenever you face tough times.

Gaining confidence in any situation: Clarifying your fears

Often times we don’t clarify our fears and keep it very vague. This is a mistake as it gives the impression that the situation is unknown, and that decreases our confidence of being able to handle it.

By identifying the details, we can clearly see what we are dealing with, and that gives us more confidence in facing it. In addition, often times doing this will make us realize that the situation is actually much better than we initially thought. It is the vagueness that made it seem more difficult than it actually is.

Conclusion: The Best Cure for Gaining Self Confidence

So what’s the best way for gaining self confidence? Just face every situation head on. The more you do, the more experience you have, the more you can call upon that experience to give you confidence. The ideas and methods above will help you with exactly that. This will create a cycle that builds more and more confidence.

So there you go. Use the ideas here to help build more self confidence everyday. Remember, true confidence comes from doing, not from preparing.

Copyright (c) Ethan Beh

Ethan Beh is a business consultant and self improvement enthusiast who spent the good portion of the last decade finding, learning and practicing the best self improvement [http://www.self-improvement-mentor.com] techniques available.

Visit his site for more information on self confidence tips [http://www.self-improvement-mentor.com/self-confidence-tips.html]

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